Posted on 09/03/2005 1:58:07 PM PDT by Mount Athos
When oil prices last touched record highs - actually, after adjusting for inflation we're not there yet, but given the effects of Hurricane Katrina, we probably will be soon - politicians' response was more hype than hope. Oil shale in Colorado! Tar sands in Alberta! OPEC be damned!
Remember the Carter-era Synfuels Corp. debacle? It was a response to the '70s energy shortages, closed down in 1985 after accomplishing essentially nothing at great expense, which is pretty much a description of what usually happens when the government tries to take over something that the private sector can do better. Private actors are, after all, spending their own money.
Since 1981, Shell researchers at the company's division of "unconventional resources" have been spending their own money trying to figure out how to get usable energy out of oil shale. Judging by the presentation the Rocky Mountain News heard this week, they think they've got it.
Shell's method, which it calls "in situ conversion," is simplicity itself in concept but exquisitely ingenious in execution. Terry O'Connor, a vice president for external and regulatory affairs at Shell Exploration and Production, explained how it's done (and they have done it, in several test projects):
Drill shafts into the oil-bearing rock. Drop heaters down the shaft. Cook the rock until the hydrocarbons boil off, the lightest and most desirable first. Collect them.
Please note, you don't have to go looking for oil fields when you're brewing your own.
On one small test plot about 20 feet by 35 feet, on land Shell owns, they started heating the rock in early 2004. "Product" - about one-third natural gas, two-thirds light crude - began to appear in September 2004. They turned the heaters off about a month ago, after harvesting about 1,500 barrels of oil.
While we were trying to do the math, O'Connor told us the answers. Upwards of a million barrels an acre, a billion barrels a square mile. And the oil shale formation in the Green River Basin, most of which is in Colorado, covers more than a thousand square miles - the largest fossil fuel deposits in the world.
Wow.
They don't need subsidies; the process should be commercially feasible with world oil prices at $30 a barrel. The energy balance is favorable; under a conservative life-cycle analysis, it should yield 3.5 units of energy for every 1 unit used in production. The process recovers about 10 times as much oil as mining the rock and crushing and cooking it at the surface, and it's a more desirable grade. Reclamation is easier because the only thing that comes to the surface is the oil you want.
And we've hardly gotten to the really ingenious part yet. While the rock is cooking, at about 650 or 750 degrees Fahrenheit, how do you keep the hydrocarbons from contaminating ground water? Why, you build an ice wall around the whole thing. As O'Connor said, it's counterintuitive.
But ice is impermeable to water. So around the perimeter of the productive site, you drill lots more shafts, only 8 to 12 feet apart, put in piping, and pump refrigerants through it. The water in the ground around the shafts freezes, and eventually forms a 20- to 30-foot ice barrier around the site.
Next you take the water out of the ground inside the ice wall, turn up the heat, and then sit back and harvest the oil until it stops coming in useful quantities. When production drops, it falls off rather quickly.
That's an advantage over ordinary wells, which very gradually get less productive as they age.
Then you pump the water back in. (Well, not necessarily the same water, which has moved on to other uses.) It's hot down there so the water flashes into steam, picking up loose chemicals in the process. Collect the steam, strip the gunk out of it, repeat until the water comes out clean. Then you can turn off the heaters and the chillers and move on to the next plot (even saving one or two of the sides of the ice wall, if you want to be thrifty about it).
Most of the best territory for this astonishing process is on land under the control of the Bureau of Land Management. Shell has applied for a research and development lease on 160 acres of BLM land, which could be approved by February. That project would be on a large enough scale so design of a commercial facility could begin.
The 2005 energy bill altered some provisions of the 1920 Minerals Leasing Act that were a deterrent to large-scale development, and also laid out a 30-month timetable for establishing federal regulations governing commercial leasing.
Shell has been deliberately low-key about their R&D, wanting to avoid the hype, and the disappointment, that surrounded the last oil-shale boom. But O'Connor said the results have been sufficiently encouraging they are gradually getting more open. Starting next week, they will be holding public hearings in northwest Colorado.
I'll say it again. Wow.
Interesting article. Thanks for posting it.
I've heard that there are substantial deposits of shale oil here in the US - but economicaly, it's been unfeasable to drill for it.
Hopefully, this one will work.
bump
One article says the reserves in the Green River deposit located in Wyoming/Utah/Colorado holds 3X the reserves of Saudi Arabia. Not a bad deal.
The US should do this on a massive scale, even if we just break even, for national security purposes and to SCREW OPEC.
If they will not allow the small footprint operation near ANWR
ping
Never happen..not because it's not a wonderful technology, but the envrio-weenies will scream that we're going to destroy the habitat of the green-multi-toed-gila-lizard, even though it occupies only 1/2,500,000 of the intended drilling zone..but I agree, we gotta do something and the reserves in the U.S. would allow us to tell OPEC to go do something to themselves that is physically impossible..
OMG, can you imagine? We would be totally free of dependence on other countries for oil! That would be incredible.
Good post. Look at the Northern Rocky Mountains States and High Great Plains region USA/Canada, they have abundant domestic natural gas, coal bed natural gas, and coal and oil-shale and nuclear resources, so vast as to supply America's energy needs for at least 300-500 year to around $100 TRILLION. The Northern regions are the FUTURE for the USA and our energy companies, we don't need to go Hat-in-Hand overseas for our energy needs.
bttt
Shale oil uneconomical at prices below $30bbl. However, we have been considerably above $30bbl for sometime now. My husband has been saying this for weeks -- that we should be moving ahead with shale oil recovery. However, that still leaves the problem of refineries -- where do you send it?
The second part of his thesis is to build refineries on decommissioned military bases -- spread overa many sections of the country so that they are not such a big target for natural, or manmade, disaster. The Federal government has control over military land, and I think they would not need permits -- California and Florida enviro-weenies be damned!
My contribution to this thesis (and I thought of this days before Michael Savage mentioned it on air) is to re-open housing for refugees on those same decommissioned bases and employ the displaced workers to build the refineries! (Walk to work.) The women can be employed in clerical, or service jobs associated with constructing the refineries, or educating the children who live there. Outside teachers could be brought in if needed. Three problems solved at one shot and at minimal cost to the taxpayer.
This would be similar to WPA and CCC projects during the Depression. Win, win, win. We reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we rehabilitate displaced workers, we house and rebuild displaced families.
Alright, but it took them ten months to get 1,500 barrels of oil. That is not enough.
The Rats will protest....."We must protect the prairie dogs!"
hey no vulgar acronyms in my thread!
~ bookmarked ~
Now that Bush is a lame duck, maybe it's time for some executive orders to get this moving.... like Clinton did in the opposite direction.
what you're implying is that the evacuees coming out of new orleans learn to fend for themselves? who knows, it might work but you're still going to have a percentage of them (no idea what that percentage would be) that will still want Uncle Sam to take care of them..but, excellent idea..:)
Apologies offered.
by the way..what's the cost of uninhabited land in Colorado?? (not that I'd be interested in leasing it to oil companies)..:)
no worries I do it myself, trying to swear less
Nooooo! We must SAVE the land for the spotted snot fly and the narrow leaf shitweed!
Great news! Until the environuts do everything in their power to stop the spoiling of the "unspoiled Colorado wilderness."
I'm predicting that Katrina will deal a crippling blow to enviroweenies as well as 99% of anyti-military sentiment.
It was a small-scale test -- a lab experiment to determine economics and feasibility.
Forget it. Go with corn. It's the new oil.
But this was only a small test plot, 20 x 30 ft. And they turned off the heaters after getting that 1,500 barrels, because all they wanted to do was prove that the technology works.
I don't doubt that a large full-scale production effort will yield much, much more.
"Great news! Until the environuts do everything in their power to stop the spoiling of the "unspoiled Colorado wilderness.""
Screw them..if the people of Colorado say yes, then yes it is..the enviro-weenies can walk to work if they don't want to buy the gas that comes out of the wells..
Is it easily expandable? That is the question. Or are they going to have to drill one million holes, each one producing 1,500 barrels in 10 months?
bookmarked for later reading/research
"Forget it. Go with corn. It's the new oil."
So are you suggesting somehow one can crack all the fractions, e.g. benzene, naptha, etc., desiel/jet/heating fuels, upward to various classes of gasoline etc., from corn oil?
If not, don't we still need petro oil, to provide us with the literally thousands of fractions that are then used for making hundreds of thousands of end products, e.g. pharmeceuticals, plastics obviously of thousands of types, lubricants of all varieties along with the chemicals that they require to perform in a given way........blah blah blah, endlessly. Will corn oil provide all those end products we depend on and industry cannot exists without?
"Economical" is a function of BOTH cost of production AND the price you can sell it for.
In this case, the biggest variable is "what can we expect to sell it for over the next "x" year?". Up until now, the oil companies have been operating under the assumption that, over the long term, they'll be unable to sell oil above that price.
Fight for an Energy-Independant USA...NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then, first phase, you target something on the order of 1/2 of estimated possible production. And ramp up from there. Call it 2-3 years on a ''crash'' basis, 5 on a ''normal'' basis.
Once the process is started, it's self-propagating, assuming only that new shafts are added on a systematic basis.
What I can't figure out (doubtless Shell have figured it, of course) is how to capture the liquid fractions. Why won't they just seep away?
Any thoughts, folks?
That is a pretty damned good idea.
How 'bout natural gas....we need that to make fertilizer.
No gas? Uh, Houston, we have a problem.
Drill now. Build now.
We need supplies and refining capacity NOW.
The solution of course is nuclear power to extract the oil, but there will still be a large "scar" where the oil shale has been mined. (Open pit I suspect). The answer is that it never has been free, energy will always take some toll on the environment.
But the time for this investment may not be here yet. We could dig in and find that more light sweet crude is available in the Middle East, (because we are being sandbagged) and the price could fall to below $30 and leave investors beholding to the government for the money to run the oil shale plant.
Of course we could and should start on the nuclear power now.
"However, that still leaves the problem of refineries -- where do you send it? "
The good part about this process is that the oil is collected almost refined as is. The benzenes and smaller alkanes are the first to get collected. Those are the gasolines and jet fuels. Followed by heavier stuff, which may be able to run the heaters.
The Rats will protest....."We must protect the prairie dogs
...for the varmit hunters Texasproud,Eaker,Squantos, and a few other freepers.
What I'd like to see additionally along these lines is the establishment of a good number of coal-oil facilities. Easy to build, easy to operate and comparatively inexpensive, technology well-known, and produce a nice clean product that's almost #2. Absolutely feasible (if built on/near existing pipe) w/crude at or above $26-27. Less than that, really, if one amortises the start-up cost over, say, 25 years.
Further, coal oil (if we would push it) would have the huge advantage of almost immediately reducing the amount of NG being burnt just to heat. NG should be feedstock, not fuel; it's much more valuable in that role.
something you might want to ping?
As asked earlier, how do they prevent an enormous loss of liquid via seepage?
"We need supplies and refining capacity NOW."
Yep. Problem is how much money will our oil companies put up, to make a future profit. And if they are willing, always goes back to decades of environemental wackos/congress keeping us from becoming totally oil independent as we once where.
As we have read for years, oil shale processes have come and gone, for various reasons. Unless you have a totally united congress and executive branch that would not change course for some twenty years on the issue, I don't see how what we all would like to see happen will come to past.
They probably suck em out and distill them into liquid.
I think it's about time we tell the environazis to go suck a rock. We must remember that their carping is designed on a plan to destroy our society.
It's a dichotomy; the liberal "contituency" support the (so-called) "leaders" because they think they share goals. But while the constituency wants for example religion destroyed because they don't want their behavior and attitudes to be held up to examination and judgement, the leadership wants it destroyed because they want Big Brother to be considered the source of natural rights, not God.
That way Big Brother can take away as easily as he gives. When I started evaluating liberals' behavior and statements in that light, I started seeing their ulterior motives a little more clearly.
Anyone want to take bets that the ecofacists will show up in force to denounce this big oil intrustion on to the sacred burial grounds of the dung beetle or whatever?
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